NEW YORK — A prominent genetics expert from Harvard Medical School wants to make one thing perfectly clear: He is NOT looking for a woman to bear a Neanderthal baby. Not even an adventurous one.
“Definitely not," said George Church.
Is he advocating for creating a Neanderthal? No. Does he plan to pursue such a project? “We have no projects, no plans, we have no papers, no grants" to do that, he said earlier this week.
You wouldn’t know that from news reports shooting around the Internet that make Church sound like he’s supporting the idea and even looking for an “adventurous" woman to bear the Neanderthal child.
He says those reports are based on misunderstandings of an interview he gave the German magazine Der Spiegel about his recent book, “Regenesis: How Synthetic Biology Will Reinvent Nature and Ourselves."
Church said the idea of bringing back Neanderthals gets brief mention as a theoretical possibility, and the book refers to an “adventurous" woman merely to point out that the process would require a woman who no doubt would be adventurous.
“It said you’re going to need someone like that if you’re going to do it," he said. “It’s certainly very different from taking out a want ad."
Scientists have recovered DNA from Neanderthal fossils. Making a Neanderthal would start with putting such DNA into human cells. They would be used to make an embryo, which would be carried to term by a surrogate mother, Church said.
Such a process would face ethical questions involving respect for the mother and child, as well as safety issues, and it would also require societal approval, he said.
